Anticipation curled inside his belly as Jude turned slowly and stepped away from the open doorway to Justin’s room. Snow paused behind him. Warm breath brushed over the back of Jude’s neck and he locked his knees, trying to focus on anything other than all the blood that was rushing to his dick because Snow was about to touch him.
The hall was empty as patients slept in their beds. There was only the constant beeping of machines and the low conversation of nurses at their station at the far end of the hall. The hospital changed at night, took on a surreal, hushed atmosphere that always felt off. Like all the worry and inability to sleep leaked from the patients and skewered real time, shuffling them into a separate, slower realm. He held his breath when Snow placed both hands firmly on his shoulders and dug his fingers into muscle.
Jude groaned.
Those hands hesitated and the barely-there chuckle right beside his ear made him give up the fight on the rushing blood. He could only hope the hall stayed staff free because his problem was going to be obvious in these pants. Snow ran his thumbs up the cords on the back of his neck. The pain started to ease.
“You’re really good with your hands,” Jude murmured, inwardly amused over how relaxed his neck felt and how so far from relaxed the rest of him was.
“I’m paid to be.” Snow dug his thumbs in harder, knowing exactly where the tight muscles causing the pain were bunched. His hands were warm. Tough. His touch sure and clinical—although a couple of finger swipes felt more like caresses. Maybe they were his imagination but he hadn’t expected a massage from those million-dollar hands.
Jude groaned again when the muscles finally gave and the pain melted away. The doctor must have felt it because he stepped back and cleared his throat. Jude turned and something new swept over him as he took in how uncomfortable Snow seemed. For the first time in Jude’s memory, his eyes didn’t lock onto Jude’s. Snow glanced at him before his gaze skated away. His face had paled, making the harsh, red scratches stand out on his cheek.
Shocked, Jude stared. There was something skittish about the man, something faintly fragile. Jude knew it wouldn’t be something the man liked people to see and the only reason he was witnessing it was a combination of too many stressful hours and the middle of the night, when exhaustion felled even the most stoic of people.
The most powerful urge to comfort him swamped Jude and it was all he could do not to tug the man into the nearest empty room and wrap his arms around him. Jude was stunned. After months of watching Snow, he thought he had the man pegged. Intelligent, arrogant, driven. But this one act of kindness, this unexpected step outside of the norm for both of them, had given Jude the most tantalizing peek at a hidden side to the gruff and cold doctor. There was more to Frost than he’d originally thought, and yeah, he wanted to fuck the man senseless, but even more than that—he suddenly wanted to know him. Really know him.
Snow cleared his throat. “Neck better?” All the warmth of earlier had disappeared from his voice.
“Much. Thanks. That happens a lot.” Jude licked his lips, thrilled when Snow’s gaze followed the movement and locked on his mouth. He took a bold chance. “I’d like to know what else you can do with your talented hands.”
If anything, the doctor grew even more agitated. He was like the best sort of Japanese mystery puzzle box. And Jude should know—he’d been collecting them since childhood. He loved nothing more than finding his way into a beautiful, unique, and tricky mystery.
“You aren’t going to find out.” He frowned. “I need to check on my patient. Go home.”
Jude grinned. There he went snapping out orders again. But something in the way he looked at Jude had shifted. He’d found the first clue he needed in order to get into the puzzle that was Doc Frost.
Determination.
Chapter 3
Snow had dismissed him too easily, and Jude knew what the next step in the riddle should be. Show the arrogant doctor that he wasn’t so easily forgotten. He knew where Snow parked and he decided to wait for him in the lot.
Frigid January wind, wet and piercing, crept under his jacket and he blew on his hands, wishing he’d grabbed his gloves. The massive parking lot for the employees was still packed with cars, jammed close and glazed with rain. Light from the sparse lamps was pathetic, doing little to beat back the darkness. People coming off shift hurried to their cars with their heads down, but their posture had little to do with the biting cold. The hospital was located in a downtrodden part of town, where homes were crumbling, falling into an almost slow-motion decay, while buildings were boarded up and covered with graffiti representing this or that gang. The only good thing was that victims of shootings and violent attacks had a short distance to travel for medical help.
Leaning against Snow’s car, Jude frowned, grinding his teeth together as the first bites of reality started to gnaw at him. What was he doing? The man had given him the brush off. And he sure as hell didn’t stalk arrogant doctors in the parking lot.
Jude pulled his jacket closer around him and closed his eyes. A cold wind snapped at his cheeks but his mind drifted to a warm coffee shop and a gentle smile. That was the kind of person he preferred to date after the nightmarish three-year relationship with Brian. Michael had been close to perfect. They’d run into each other every Sunday morning for months at the same coffee shop. It started as a smile and a nod. And then a little chitchat if they happened to be waiting for their order at the same time. Then it was lunch. Dinner. Michael was warm, sweet, and friendly. He was stable and dependable. He’d been everything that Jude was looking for in a partner. They’d fallen into dating and it lasted for four months. And then just as easily, they stopped. There had been no drama, but there had also been no fire, no deep connection that kept drawing him to the other man as if he were the air his lungs craved.
“Shit,” he whispered on an exhale. This had all the earmarks of being another crazy mistake. But even with that churning, uneasy feeling in his stomach, Jude knew he wasn’t walking away. No way was he giving up on the doctor—not when there was something between them that felt so different. So strong. A gut-deep pull that kept drawing him in every time their eyes locked.
Plus, that entire encounter in the hall had showed him something new and he was intrigued.
Footsteps crunched through the gravel sprinkled across the blacktop. He looked up and watched Snow stride toward him. His hair shone in the light of the street lamps, the silvery streaks stark, and his dark, knee-length coat made him look longer and leaner than the white coat Jude was used to seeing him wear. His arrogant detachment was fully back, a second cloak that wrapped him in what he probably thought was invisible armor. Jude could see every inch of it. Just as he now knew to look for that hint of uncertainty he’d glimpsed earlier.
Snow held up a hand. “Look, Torres—”
“Shut up, General.” Jude took a quick glance around the parking lot, which was thankfully empty now. He grabbed the lapels of Snow’s coat, turned and pressed the man’s back to his car.
“What the fuck—”
Jude cut him off by pressing his mouth to Snow’s and murmuring against his lips. “I said…shut up.” This time, he was wide awake and knew where he was. That glimpse of uncertainty earlier, that brief hesitancy, had made him see something receptive in Snow—something that brought Jude’s protective caveman instincts to the surface. Something that made his balls ache with the need to explore the man more.
He pressed into the length of Snow’s body and slanted his mouth harder over the doctor’s. Parting his lips, Jude slid his tongue inside, and moaned when Snow didn’t resist. He didn’t respond at first either. Stubbornness, shock—Jude didn’t know what kind of emotion made the doc stand so still, but he took advantage. He slid his cold hands up Snow’s neck to cup the sides of his head, stroking one finger around the man’s ear.
Snow shuddered, then gave in. He pushed back, meeting his tongue stroke for stroke. There was no tentative exploration that usually happened in a f
irst kiss. No, this was hot and dirty fast.
And mind blowing.
Holy shit, the general’s mouth was made for more than just spitting out orders. His full bottom lip cushioned Jude’s perfectly. His tongue was silky, his mouth warm. He tasted faintly of coffee and the light stubble around his lips caught in Jude’s. He opened his mouth wider and Jude wondered if spontaneous combustion was a thing because every part of him felt ready to burst into flames.
He wanted this mouth—this stunning, hot mouth—wrapped around his cock something fierce.
Hands came up to grip the sides of Jude’s waist through his coat. Snow tugged him even closer, sliding one leg between Jude’s, his thigh pressing up into Jude’s crotch. Hard.
His breath stopped, his heart slammed against his ribs and his dick went from interested to frantic. He rubbed against Snow’s solid thigh and swallowed the sexy as fuck noise that came from Snow’s mouth. Their kiss grew harder, wetter, and Jude wasn’t the only one trying to get friction on his cock. Snow turned them, pressed hard against him, shoving Jude’s back into the cold Lexus behind him. Snow straddled Jude’s thigh, his rhythmic, almost violent thrusts against him both hurting and feeling so good, Jude wasn’t sure how he still stood on his feet.
Snow abruptly pulled back, his hot breath fogging in the cold between them as he panted. Gloved hands came up to cup Jude’s face, the leather cold on his cheeks, and then Snow’s hot tongue was back in his mouth.
Jude sucked on it even as he increased the movement of his hips. A kaleidoscope of feelings sparked in his body and spread out in a torrent of overwhelming sensations. Heat, lust, need. He ground his groin into the doctor’s hip, then stopped, dragging air deep into his lungs. This time, he drew away. “Shit, General, your mouth. So hot. I’m close. Gonna come in my pants.”
Somewhere nearby a car door slammed and Snow froze. Jude couldn’t stop the hoarse cry of disappointment and need that escaped his throat. He damn near whimpered and would have turned bright red with embarrassment if he wasn’t so in shock. And so close to the edge, he felt dizzy with it. He’d wanted the doctor from the first time he’d seen him and had expected things would be hot between them—but he hadn’t expected this kind of molten response. He wanted more. A lot more.
The doctor wasn’t any better off. His hips moved once more as if he couldn’t stop himself, and then he shoved Jude away so hard, he stumbled back a few steps.
Jude didn’t bother to look at who walked past them. Instead, he watched as Snow pulled himself together, loving the hell out of the knowledge that he’d put the man in that state. “Go to dinner with me tonight.” He didn’t make it a question.
Snow shook his head. “Even if I wasn’t working, I’d say no.”
“After that kiss?”
“That was a hell of a lot more than a kiss.” Snow’s smirk had a ragged edge, like he wasn’t sure whether to be amused or disturbed. His smirk melted into some kind of sneer.
Jude recognized a man backtracking out of panic. He moved in, not willing to give up. “You say no even after that make-out session then? Does that describe the incredible whatever the hell that was between us better?”
“Make-out session?” Snow snorted. “You make it sound like we’re teenagers.”
Jude stepped closer into his personal space. “What would you call it then?” he pitched his voice low, so ready to drag the man into the back of his car, he was barely leashing himself.
“Stupid,” Snow snapped. Yet…he didn’t push Jude away.
“I want you.” Jude didn’t feel like tiptoeing around the real issue here.
Snow slowly grinned and the predatory, sort of vulturine slant of it sent shivers of excitement and if he were honest, a thread of fear, through Jude. The doctor gripped Jude’s prick through his pants. He didn’t slowly search, didn’t stroke down to find, no. He grabbed and he clenched his fingers too tight. “I can tell.”
Jude held his breath. He didn’t move. Something snapped between them, something that sparked fire and awakened every wicked thought Jude had ever suppressed. Holy hell. This man was danger with a capital fucking D.
But he was something else, too, and Jude was smart enough to realize not exploring this further would be stupid. Snow wasn’t the type to want the same things. Family…kids. And the hell of it was, none of that mattered. Jude wanted to fuck him through a mattress, and he wanted to crawl inside his brain and learn everything there was to know about him. He wanted to see him sweating and ravaged and the fear this raised in him would have sent him stepping back. Only he couldn’t move.
The grip on his cock tightened to the point of pain. Jude sucked in a breath and held it as something dark flickered across Frost’s expression. His eyes filled with curiosity as he tightened his fingers just a hair more.
Jude let a grin slowly stretch his mouth wide as he reached down and used more force than the doctor probably expected to remove his hand. He grabbed strong fingers and pried them away from his goods and he was gratified by the way Snow’s mouth fell slightly open in shock. “The hospital parking lot isn’t the place for whatever it is you’re after. You want to take this somewhere more private, General?”
“Don’t call me that.” Snow shoved him away again. He pulled out his keys, frowned at Jude, and for a brief instant, surprise flickered through those blue eyes. “This isn’t happening again.” He pressed the key fob and his car beeped as it unlocked.
Jude just gave him another grin. “Yeah, General, it is.”
###
After sleeping in fits and spurts, Snow glared at the dark ceiling above his bed and clenched his fingers in his hair. Three nights in a row without any decent sleep and when he did manage to catch some, it was interrupted by a reoccurring nightmare he’d had since childhood. He was running on fumes. Growling to himself, he snatched his cell phone off the bedside table and called Dr. Kleinberg, leaving a message that she now had his shift. She’d offered earlier and he’d shrugged her off. He was in no shape to be taking care of trauma patients, not when he was this tired.
And worried.
By early afternoon, Snow finally gave up and stumbled out of bed. He drank his coffee while sitting on the window seat in his kitchen, looking out at the Ohio River, watching the heavily bundled joggers puffing past on the rare sunny day. The sense of peace he usually felt when he was home was missing this time. He couldn’t pull his mind from Gratton. Where was the bastard hiding? Why was he even back in town?
As the sun crept back toward the horizon, he restlessly prowled his home, waiting for nightfall when he could take his hunt to the streets. He avoided texts from his friends through the day, because if he talked to them, he’d have to tell them Gratton was back, that their past was threatening to tear through their carefully built lives once again. And he couldn’t do that. Not yet. He wanted to be wrong. Or at least give them one more day of blissful ignorance.
Thinking about Boris Jagger, the piece of filth who’d once employed Gratton as an enforcer, had been part of the reason Snow had been unable to sleep. Snow didn’t think Jagger’s meat puppet would come back to the same bar after being recognized, but he didn’t know where else to look. Cincinnati’s underworld boss had made Ian’s life a living hell even before Ian fell into the hands of Jagger’s thug enforcer. And that enforcer had been watching Snow and his friends in that bar two nights ago.
Bundled in his warmest coat, Snow returned to stalk the Village and parts of Covington. Later, he planned to hit The Laundry Room to find a warm body to take his mind off Jude Torres, but he needed to deal with this burning drive to get answers first. Had Gratton followed them or had it been a coincidence? There was no way of knowing. What he did know, was that Gratton wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near Cincinnati. That had been the deal to keep his life. Plus, they’d paid—he, Lucas and Rowe—Jagger to keep the deal in place.
What the hell had happened to change that?
Sometimes, Snow could still see the blood on his hands, could
feel that snap back into reality when Lucas had slammed through the door of that motel room and pulled him off the unconscious man he’d beaten nearly to death. It had been the one time he’d truly lost control of the anger that simmered low at all times inside him. While the blood memories came sporadically, the memory of Ian drugged and unaware seemed to hover permanently in the back of Snow’s mind. It had been years and Ian had proved time and again that he’d recovered, that he was strong and capable and happy.
Ian’s strength humbled Snow.
But strong or not, Ian didn’t deserve to run into the man who’d gotten off on torturing him. If Snow still had nightmares about that time, Ian was bound to as well, and seeing that rat-faced thug would only make things worse. Sometimes Snow wished he’d finished the job. But Lucas was right when he’d said that everything that made Snow a good doctor was tied up in his vow to save lives. If he’d given into the urge to choke the life from that evil prick, he wouldn’t have ever totally moved past it.
Cursing, he strode down Madison Avenue, walking past a bank and some small shops. Trying to find one person in this area was probably not his best idea, but he couldn’t help it. His stomach rumbled at the mix of Korean and Italian food scents and...something else he hadn’t smelled in a long time. A Swisher Sweets cigar. Rowe had smoked the damn things when they’d been back in the service. The glowing tip of the cigar lit up a small section of a balcony above him. The man stepped to the black rail, waved a hello. Dark, wavy hair made Snow slow, reminded him of Jude.
Shaking his head, he continued down the street. He was spending too much time thinking about the paramedic. About that damn kiss and the feel of his dick in his hand. The man’s heat had scorched his palm even through the layers of his clothes.
When his phone buzzed in his pocket, Snow pulled it out and frowned at the screen. He didn’t want to talk to Lucas. He couldn’t keep secrets from that man and he didn’t want to tell him about Gratton yet. Not when Lucas had so recently dealt with violence of his own. And not while he was in some kind of love haze with his ex-bodyguard. Bare-backing was something Snow had never done—not once—and couldn’t imagine a time when he’d trust anyone enough to do that.
Shatter (Unbreakable Bonds Series Book 2) Page 4